That I have dared to tread this holy ground,
Speaking no dream but things oracular,
Matter not lightly to be heard by those
Who to the letter of the outward promise
Do read the invisible soul, by men adroit 255
In speech and for communion with the world
Accomplished, minds whose faculties are then
Most active when they are most eloquent,
And elevated most when most admired.
Men may be found of other mold than these, 260
Who are their own upholders, to themselves
Encouragement, and energy, and will,
Expressing liveliest thoughts in lively words
As native passion dictates. Others, too,
There are among the walks of homely life 265
Still higher, men for contemplation framed,
Shy, and unpractised in the strife of phrase,
Meek men, whose very souls perhaps would sink
Beneath them, summoned to such intercourse:
Theirs is the language of the heavens, the power, 270
The thought, the image, and the silent joy;
Words are but under-agents in their souls —
When they are grasping with their greatest strength
They do not breathe among them. This I speak
In gratitude to God, who feeds our hearts 275
For his own service, knoweth, loveth us,
When we are unregarded by the world.’
Also about this time did I receive
Convictions still more strong than heretofore
Not only that the inner frame is good, 280
And graciously composed, but that, no less,
Nature through all conditions hath a power
To consecrate — if we have eyes to see —
The outside of her creatures, and to breathe
Grandeur upon the very humblest face 285
Of human life. I felt that the array
Of outward circumstance and visible form
Is to the pleasure of the human mind
What passion makes it; that meanwhile the forms
Of Nature have a passion in themselves 290
That intermingles with those works of man
To which she summons him, although the works
Be mean, having nothing lofty of their own;
And that the genius of the poet hence
May boldly take his way among mankind 295
Wherever Nature leads — that he hath stood
By Nature’s side among the men of old,
And so shall stand for ever. Dearest friend,
Forgive me if I say that I, who long
Had harboured reverentially a thought 300
That poets, even as prophets, each with each
Connected in a mighty scheme of truth,
Have each for his peculiar dower a sense
By which he is enabled to perceive
Something unseen before — forgive me, friend, 305
If I, the meanest of this band, had hope
That unto me had also been vouchsafed
An influx, that in some sort I possessed
A privilege, and that a work of mine,
Proceeding from the depth of untaught things, 310
Enduring and creative, might become
A power like one of Nature’s.
To such a mood,
Once above all — a traveller at that time
Upon the plain of Sarum — was I raised: 315
There on the pastoral downs without a track
To guide me, or along the bare white roads
Lengthening in solitude their dreary line,
While through those vestiges of ancient times
I ranged, and by the solitude o’ercome, 320
I had a reverie and saw the past,
Saw multitudes of men, and here and there
A single Briton in his wolf-skin vest,
With shield and stone-ax, stride across the wold;
The voice of spears was heard, the rattling spear 325
Shaken by arms of mighty bone, in strength
Long mouldered, of barbaric majesty.
I called upon the darkness, and it took —
A midnight darkness seemed to come and take —
All objects from my sight; and lo, again 330
The desart visible by dismal flames!
It is the sacrificial altar, fed
With living men — how deep the groans! — the voice
Of those in the gigantic wicker thrills
Throughout the region far and near, pervades 335
The monumental hillocks, and the pomp
Is for both worlds, the living and the dead.
At other moments, for through that wide waste
Three summer days I roamed, when ‘twas my chance
To have before me on the downy plain 340
Lines, circles, mounts, a mystery of shapes
Such as in many quarters yet survive,
With intricate profusion figuring o’er
The untilled ground (the work, as some divine,
Of infant science, imitative forms 345
By which the Druids covertly expressed
Their knowledge of the heavens, and imaged forth
The constellations), I was gently charmed,
Albeit with an antiquarian’s dream,
And saw the bearded teachers, with white wands 350
Uplifted, pointing to the starry sky,
Alternately, and plain below, while breath
Of music seemed to guide them, and the waste
Was cleared with stillness and a pleasant sound.
This for the past, and things that may be viewed, 355
Or fancied, in the obscurities of time.
Nor is it, friend, unknown to thee; at least —
Thyself delighted — thou for my delight
Hast said, perusing some imperfect verse
Which in that lonesome journey was composed, 360
That also I must then have exercised
Upon the vulgar forms of present things
And actual world of our familiar days,
A higher power — have caught from them a tone,
An image, and a character, by books 365
Not hitherto reflected. Call we this
But a persuasion taken up by thee
In friendship, yet the mind is to herself
Witness and judge, and I remember well
That in life’s everyday appearances 370
I seemed about this period to have sight
Of a new world — a world, too, that was fit
To be transmitted and made visible
To other eyes, as having for its base
That whence our dignity originates, 375
That which both gives it being, and maintains
A balance, an ennobling interchange
Of action from within and from without:
The excellence, pure spirit, and best power,
Both of the object seen, and eye that sees. 380
BOOK THIRTEENTH.
CONCLUSION
IN one of these excursions, travelling then 4
Through Wales on foot and with a youthful friend,
I left Bethkelet’s huts at couching-time,
And westward took my way to see the sun
Rise from the top of Snowdon. Having reached 5
The cottage at the mountain’s foot, we there
Rouzed up the shepherd who by ancient right
Of office is the stranger’s usual guide,
And after short refreshment sallied forth.
It was a summer’s night, a close warm night, 10
Wan, dull, and glaring, with a dripping mist
Low-hung and thick that covered all the sky,
Half threatening storm and rain; but on we went
Unchecked, being full of heart and having faith
In our tried pilot. Littl
e could we see, 15
Hemmed round on every side with fog and damp,
And, after ordinary travellers’ chat
With our conductor, silently we sunk
Each into commerce with his private thoughts.
Thus did we breast the ascent, and by myself 20
Was nothing either seen or heard the while
Which took me from my musings, save that once
The shepherd’s cur did to his own great joy
Unearth a hedgehog in the mountain-crags,
Round which he made a barking turbulent. 25
This small adventure — for even such it seemed
4Book Fourteenth begins here in 1850 version.
In that wild place and at the dead of night —
Being over and forgotten, on we wound
In silence as before. With forehead bent
Earthward, as if in opposition set 30
Against an enemy, I panted up
With eager pace, and no less eager thoughts,
Thus might we wear perhaps an hour away,
Ascending at loose distance each from each,
And I, as chanced, the foremost of the band — 35
When at my feet the ground appeared to brighten,
And with a step or two seemed brighter still;
Nor had I time to ask the cause of this,
For instantly a light upon the turf
Fell like a flash. I looked about, and lo, 40
The moon stood naked in the heavens at height
Immense above my head, and on the shore
I found myself of a huge sea of mist,
Which meek and silent rested at my feet.
A hundred hills their dusky backs upheaved 45
All over this still ocean, and beyond,
Far, far beyond, the vapours shot themselves
In headlands, tongues, and promontory shapes,
Into the sea, the real sea, that seemed
To dwindle and give up its majesty, 50
Usurped upon as far as sight could reach.
Meanwhile, the moon looked down upon this shew
In single glory, and we stood, the mist
Touching our very feet; and from the shore
At distance not the third part of a mile 55
Was a blue chasm, a fracture in the vapour,
A deep and gloomy breathing-place, through which
Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, steams
Innumerable, roaring with one voice.
The universal spectacle throughout 60
Was shaped for admiration and delight,
Grand in itself alone, but in that breach
Through which the homeless voice of waters rose,
That dark deep thoroughfare, had Nature lodged
The soul, the imagination of the whole. 65
A meditation rose in me that night
Upon the lonely mountain when the scene
Had passed away, and it appeared to me
The perfect image of a mighty mind,
Of one that feeds upon infinity, 70
That is exalted by an under-presence,
The sense of God, or whatsoe’er is dim
Or vast in its own being — above all,
One function of such mind had Nature there
Exhibited by putting forth, and that 75
With circumstance most awful and sublime:
That domination which she oftentimes
Exerts upon the outward face of things,
So moulds them, and endues, abstracts, combines,
Or by abrupt and unhabitual influence 80
Doth make one object so impress itself
Upon all others, and pervades them so,
That even the grossest minds must see and hear,
And cannot chuse but feel. The power which these
Acknowledge when thus moved, which Nature thus 85
Thrusts forth upon the senses, is the express
Resemblance — in the fullness of its strength
Made visible — a genuine counterpart
And brother of the glorious faculty
Which higher minds bear with them as their own. 90
This is the very spirit in which they deal
With all the objects of the universe:
They from their native selves can send abroad
Like transformation, for themselves create
A like existence, and, when’er it is 95
Created for them, catch it by an instinct.
Them the enduring and the transient both
Serve to exalt. They build up greatest things
From least suggestions, ever on the watch,
Willing to work and to be wrought upon. 100
They need not extraordinary calls
To rouze them — in a world of life they live,
By sensible impressions not enthralled,
But quickened, rouzed, and made thereby more fit
To hold communion with the invisible world. 105
Such minds are truly from the Deity,
For they are powers; and hence the highest bliss
That can be known is theirs — the consciousness
Of whom they are, habitually infused
Through every image, and through every thought, 110
And all impressions; hence religion, faith,
And endless occupation for the soul,
Whether discursive or intuitive;
Hence sovereignty within and peace at will,
Emotion which best foresight need not fear, 115
Most worthy then of trust when most intense;
Hence chearfulness in every act of life;
Hence truth in moral judgements; and delight
That fails not, in the external universe.
Oh, who is he that hath his whole life long 120
Preserved, enlarged, this freedom in himself? —
For this alone is genuine liberty,
Witness, ye solitudes, where I received
My earliest visitations (careless then
Of what was given me), and where now I roam, 125
A meditative, oft a suffering man,
And yet I trust with undiminished powers;
Witness — whatever falls my better mind,
Revolving with the accidents of life,
May have sustained — that, howsoe’er misled, 130
I never in the quest of right and wrong
Did tamper with myself from private aims;
Nor was in any of my hopes the dupe
Of selfish passions; nor did wilfully
Yield ever to mean cares and low pursuits; 135
But rather did with jealousy shrink back
From every combination that might aid
The tendency, too potent in itself,
Of habit to enslave the mind — I mean
Oppress it by the laws of vulgar sense, 140
And substitute a universe of death,
The falsest of all worlds, in place of that
Which is divine and true. To fear and love
(To love as first and chief, for there fear ends)
Be this ascribed, to early intercourse 145
In presence of sublime and lovely forms
With the adverse principles of pain and joy —
Evil as one is rashly named by those
Who know not what they say. From love, for here
Do we begin and end, all grandeur comes, 150
All truth and beauty — from pervading love —
That gone, we are as dust. Behold the fields
In balmy springtime, full of rising flowers
And happy creatures; see that pair, the lamb
And the lamb’s mother, and their tender ways 155
Shall touch thee to the heart; in some green bower
Rest, and be not alone, but have thou there
The one who is thy choice of all the world —
There linger, lulled, and lost, and rapt away —
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Be happy to thy fill; thou call’st this love, 160
And so it is, but there is higher love
Than this, a love that comes into the heart
With awe and a diffusive sentiment.
Thy love is human merely: this proceeds
More from the brooding soul, and is divine. 165
This love more intellectual cannot be
Without imagination, which in truth
Is but another name for absolute strength
And clearest insight, amplitude of mind,
And reason in her most exalted mood. 170
This faculty hath been the moving soul
Of our long labour: we have traced the stream
From darkness, and the very place of birth
In its blind cavern, whence is faintly heard
The sound of waters; followed it to light 175
And open day, accompanied its course
Among the ways of Nature, afterwards
Lost sight of it bewildered and engulphed,
Then given it greeting as it rose once more
With strength, reflecting in its solemn breast 180
The works of man, and face of human life;
And lastly, from its progress have we drawn
The feeling of life endless, the one thought
By which we live, infinity and God.
Imagination having been our theme, 185
So also hath that intellectual love,
For they are each in each, and cannot stand
Dividually. Here must thou be, O man,
Strength to thyself — no helper hast thou here —
Here keepest thou thy individual state: 190
No other can divide with thee this work,
No secondary hand can intervene
To fashion this ability. ‘Tis thine,
The prime and vital principle is thine
In the recesses of thy nature, far 195
From any reach of outward fellowship,
Else ‘tis not thine at all. But joy to him,
O, joy to him who here hath sown — hath laid
Here the foundations of his future years —
For all that friendship, all that love can do, 200
All that a darling countenance can look
Or dear voice utter, to complete the man,
Perfect him, made imperfect in himself,
All shall be his. And he whose soul hath risen
Up to the height of feeling intellect 205
Shall want no humbler tenderness, his heart
Be tender as a nursing mother’s heart;
Of female softness shall his life be full,
Of little loves and delicate desires,
Mild interests and gentlest sympathies. 210
Child of my parents, sister of my soul,
Elsewhere have strains of gratitude been breathed
To thee for all the early tenderness
Which I from thee imbibed. And true it is
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